TITLE OF THE PUBLICATION
Drop out and attention to diversity
SURNAME AND NAME OF AUTHOR(S)
Domínguez Fernández, A.
PUBLISHER
Indivisa, Boletín de Estudios de Investigación
PLACE AND DATE OF PUBLICATION
Madrid. 2005
TYPE OF PUBLICATION
Research
LANGUAGE OF THE DOCUMENT
Spanish
LANGUAGE OF THE REVIEW
English
THEMATIC AREA
Integration of immigrants students
DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS
Numerous studies show that a very important part of absentee students come from a disadvantaged environment and in great risk of social exclusion with scarce economic resources and lack of any important professional formation. Thus, some of these families do not fully know either the obligatory nature of education, nor its importance or transcendence.
The author outlines the importance of being conscious that both school absenteeism and school failure tend to always fall back into the same sectors of the population. The gypsy students would fit into the population into which these social conditionings fall back.
The important problems of several of the divulged studies are analyzed, studies in which sporadic absences are included as school absenteeism. Thus, the importance of conceptualizing school absenteeism as regular absence in schools by students in compulsory stages of education (Primary Education and Compulsory Secondary Education) is established. There is also a difference between high absenteeism (absence to more than 50% of class), medium absenteeism (between 25 and 50%) and low absenteeism (below 25%). The author outlines that school absenteeism and failure increase when compulsory schooling is elevated until 16 years old and that the solution to the problem goes through a equalitarian and balanced redistribution, not only of the opportunities of access to education but also of the opportunities of permanence and promotion of the educative system.
The profiles of the absentee students and their families is emphasized: disadvantaged environments, with scarce economic resources and lack of any important professional formation. Moreover, most of these students show behavioral problems in such ways that, sometimes, their parents lack any strategies to achieve the regularized attendance because the problem, in some occasions, lies in the relationships established in the center of the family itself.
COMMENTS ON THIS PUBLICATION
The author of the article is the Chief in Service of Diversity Attention in the Territorial Department of the Autonomous Community of Madrid. Therefore, one of the aspects worth highlighting of this material is that it provides information about public economic assistance that are given in this Autonomous Community as well as the distribution of students and families which make use of them. From the beginning of this situation, the author outlines that to understand the phenomenon of absenteeism it is essential its contextualization as a multidisciplinary sociologic phenomenon. According to the data provided by the Institute of Re-accommodation and Social Integration of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, the high rates in absenteeism and failure in gypsy students, an overrepresented group in relation with this subject matter, would be due to factors such as: shanty towns and sub-standard housings, low schooling tradition of this community, high rates of illiteracy of the parents of these children, early incorporation to the job market and school material privation conditions. In the article, are included the data about the agreements established between the Autonomous Community of Madrid and the city councils that decide to apply for assistance for plans against absenteeism are included: 37 in the year 2003/2004. Said agreements can be established each year and suppose an attempt to fight the problem through local institutions. The percentage of foreign absentee students is situated, during the aforementioned year, in 20%. Regarding the Spanish students, from the group of 80% of absentee students, 38.08% were of the gypsy community, which reveals the clear influence of social exclusion in the problem of school absenteeism and school failure. The school, becomes in an element that drives and legitimizes, indirectly, the maintenance of some marginalization and social exclusion since it does not achieve that those children end in the same situation of actively incorporating to the job market in the same condition than the rest of their classmates.
Name of Compiler
Rosario del Rey
Name of Institution
University of Seville
Role in the institution
Researcher
